Survey of 2020 Presidential campaign websites: on Corporations


Gloria La Riva: Wall Street criminals must be jailed

The vast wealth of the giant banks and corporations is created by workers labor and the exploitation of the world's diminishing natural resources. The billionaires looted and destroyed the economy. It is time to seize their assets and use those resources in the interests of the vast majority. Power must be taken out of the hands of the super rich, and Wall Street criminals must be jailed.
Source: 2020 Presidential campaign website LaRiva2020.org Aug 15, 2020

Mike Bloomberg: Strengthen & expand Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Mike will restore critical consumer protections overturned by the Trump administration--including rules to rein in payday lending, ensuring investment advice prioritizes people's best interests, and preserving customers' right to sue financial institutions. Mike will strengthen the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by fortifying funding and expanding its jurisdiction to include auto lending and credit reporting.
Source: 2020 Presidential campaign website MikeBloomberg.com Jan 20, 2020

Mike Bloomberg: Raise corporate tax rate to 28%, prevent use of tax havens

Mike will raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% and increase the minimum tax on foreign income. He will also apply the minimum tax on foreign income on a per-country, rather than global, basis. He will prevent companies from shifting reported profits to foreign tax havens, tighten rules on transfer pricing and the reporting of foreign taxes, and apply pressure to countries that act as tax havens. He will take the lead on cooperative international efforts to defeat profit-shifting.
Source: 2020 Presidential campaign website MikeBloomberg.com Jan 20, 2020

Joe Sestak: Strengthen antitrust laws; stop corporate welfare

With technological advancements allowing corporations to become ever more powerful, it has never been more important to increase oversight of corporations and make sure they never act against the public interest.
Source: 2020 presidential campaign website JoeSestak.com Jun 23, 2019

Howie Hawkins: Capitalists exploit workers and thwart democracy

ECOSOCIALIST CASE AGAINST CAPITALISM: Under a capitalist system, we cannot solve the central problems of our time.

ECONOMIC HARDSHIP: We will never reverse extreme and growing economic inequality as long as capitalists exploit workers for profit and extract more unearned income from the economy as rent and interest. Capitalists pay workers a fixed wage and take the rest of the value workers' labor creates as profit. Capitalists take more unearned income as rent and interest in excess of the costs of production due to their exclusive ownership of access to resources, such as land sites, natural resources, intellectual property, and monopolies.

CAPITALIST OLIGARCHY: The central problem of American democracy is that public preferences do not become public policy. The people are way ahead of the politicians, who represent their corporate paymasters more than their voters. We can't have political democracy without economic democracy.

Source: 2020 Presidential Campaign website HowieHawkins.us May 19, 2019

Mike Gravel: Use antitrust authority to break up large businesses

The American economy of 2019 is plagued by a problem that some thought was a relic of the 1910s--monopolies. Industry after industry has become highly centralized and controlled by a handful of private bureaucratic entities. Horizontal corporate agglomeration and vertical integration have produced economic behemoths that control vast swathes of the market, are unresponsive to consumer demands, and enjoy undue influence over politics and economy at both national and sub-national levels. It is time for the US to return to the grand tradition of trust-busting and break apart market-controlling businesses.

The US should use the government's antitrust authority to break up large businesses. Regulators should take a much harder line on mergers and acquisitions.

The US should hold the executive heads of companies directly and legally liable in the event that their businesses are found to be defrauding consumers, or producing goods and services that result in injury and death.

Source: 2020 Presidential campaign website MikeGravel.com Apr 9, 2019

Mike Gravel: Re-establish public banking services within post offices

There is an informal poverty tax in America: the poorer you are, the more fees, expenses, and costs pile up. Public banking is a fix to some of these problems, by offering beneficial alternatives to predatory payday loans, banking deserts, and overdraft fees.

The US should re-establish banking services within post offices as Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has put forth, using our pre-existing nationwide infrastructure to benefit people in even more ways. Include no-cost checking and savings accounts.

Source: 2020 Presidential campaign website MikeGravel.com Apr 9, 2019

Andrew Yang: Same tax rate on capital gains as on earned income

Capital gains and carried interest currently receive favorable treatment by the tax code. This privileges investors over workers and promotes speculation. It's irrational that we privilege capital gains and investment income versus earned income. The top 20% own 92% of the stock market, and the bottom half of Americans own essentially zero. We should be encouraging and rewarding work first and foremost. An investor should not be paying a lower tax rate on gains than the person who is working hard every day. I've worked and invested and working is a lot harder.
Source: 2020 presidential campaign website Yang2020.com Mar 29, 2019

Howard Schultz: Achieve profit with humanity & pathway to middle class

I became the CEO of Starbucks when the company had just six stores. By the time I left last year, it had almost 30,000 stores in 77 countries--and over the years, Starbucks has provided a job for nearly 3 million people. Along the way, I sought to build a different kind of American company: one that would achieve profit with humanity. We provided first jobs for tens of thousands of young people. We hired more than 20,000 veterans and military spouses. We provided our front-line baristas a pathway to the middle class. We offered all of our employees, even part-timers, healthcare and stock ownership. At each juncture, people said that these kinds of investments shouldn't and couldn't be done in a for-profit company. That it would not work. But we refused to listen to the skeptics. Instead, we put our people first and found a way to give them access to healthcare, ownership and education while building a profitable company.
Source: 2020 Presidential Campaign website HowardSchultz.com Mar 13, 2019

  • The above quotations are from Survey of 2020 Presidential campaign websites.
  • Click here for definitions & background information on Corporations.
  • Click here for other issues (main summary page).
  • Click here for more quotes by Mike Gravel on Corporations.
  • Click here for more quotes by Pete Buttigieg on Corporations.
2020 Presidential contenders on Corporations:
  Democrats running for President:
Sen.Michael Bennet (D-CO)
V.P.Joe Biden (D-DE)
Mayor Mike Bloomberg (I-NYC)
Gov.Steve Bullock (D-MT)
Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D-IN)
Sen.Cory Booker (D-NJ)
Secy.Julian Castro (D-TX)
Gov.Lincoln Chafee (L-RI)
Rep.John Delaney (D-MD)
Rep.Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI)
Sen.Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
Gov.Deval Patrick (D-MA)
Sen.Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
CEO Tom Steyer (D-CA)
Sen.Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)
Marianne Williamson (D-CA)
CEO Andrew Yang (D-NY)

2020 Third Party Candidates:
Rep.Justin Amash (L-MI)
CEO Don Blankenship (C-WV)
Gov.Lincoln Chafee (L-RI)
Howie Hawkins (G-NY)
Gov.Gary Johnson(L-NM)
Howard Schultz(I-WA)
Gov.Jesse Ventura (I-MN)
Republicans running for President:
Sen.Ted Cruz(R-TX)
Gov.Larry Hogan (R-MD)
Gov.John Kasich(R-OH)
V.P.Mike Pence(R-IN)
Gov.Mark Sanford (R-SC)
Pres.Donald Trump(R-NY)
Rep.Joe Walsh (R-IL)
Gov.Bill Weld(R-MA & L-NY)

2020 Withdrawn Democratic Candidates:
Sen.Stacey Abrams (D-GA)
Mayor Bill de Blasio (D-NYC)
Sen.Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
Sen.Mike Gravel (D-AK)
Sen.Kamala Harris (D-CA)
Gov.John Hickenlooper (D-CO)
Gov.Jay Inslee (D-WA)
Mayor Wayne Messam (D-FL)
Rep.Seth Moulton (D-MA)
Rep.Beto O`Rourke (D-TX)
Rep.Tim Ryan (D-CA)
Adm.Joe Sestak (D-PA)
Rep.Eric Swalwell (D-CA)
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Page last updated: Dec 01, 2021